At least here in the U.K. Parliament has the power to get rid of Prime Ministers if they prove to be irresponsible or a danger to the nation, or stop them from running for office if they have criminal convictions and are proven liars, but I am told that the only person who could get Biden to stand down is Biden himself, and the person with the most influence over him is his wife. In any case, in a year or so he will be too old by law to continue as President if re-elected, so will have to stand down anyway. If Trump gets elected he will just pardon himself immediately.
The current fashionable illness to have here is an E. Coli infection. I have a version of it which has some alarming symptoms which I mistook for cancer, so when I looked them up on the NHS website you can imagine my relief when found that they correspond nicely with those that are experienced by 50% out of a survey of 150,000 cases of the latest strain.
The only way of catching this nasty bug is to eat the shit of infected animals. I am usually quite adventurous with food - and I don't kiss dogs, let alone cattle - but I draw the line at that. I always wash fruit and vegetables before eating as advised, but have been buying a lot of ready-to-eat salad from a top-end supermarket recently.
The packets say, washed and ready to eat, but they do not say what they have been washed in. Some say, washed in spring water, but they do not say how many animals use the same spring.
Up on Solsbury Hill (of Peter Gabriel fame) there is a small stream fed by a spring which rises on one side, where I found a lush little bed of watercress growing amongst the stones. I was about to gather some when I noticed that sheep were grazing close by. There is a bug in sheep's urine which can destroy your liver by eating away at it over quite a short period of time, so I left the watercress.
I once saw a t-shirt for jokey alcoholics which read, 'The liver is evil and must be destroyed!'
You're right Tom about water cress. There is a fluke snail that lives on it. Fluke is very dangerous in sherp and cattle and can kill them.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten the word 'fluke'.
DeleteHope you get better soon. Is the e-coli in our drinking water I wonder, or at least in certain water supplies. Never picked watercress for the same reason as Northsider says.
ReplyDeleteI know our water companies are bad, but I don't think they would let e.coli into the taps... would they...?
DeleteI felt badly for JB in the debate when he verbally had some difficulty responding a couple of times. That said, he is definitely, without a doubt the better man and has my full support. Let's acknowledge, he will surround himself with great minds and strategists - with this expertise and support he will be fine. E-coli is a big problem but if your immune system is strong it is usually kept in check. Weak immune systems usually require medical treatment to deal fully with the infection, especially if it gets in to the blood stream.
ReplyDeleteJB might be the better person but that's still not much of a choice. Not many people are hospitalised with e.coli and even fewer die.
DeleteE-coli can enter the soil from animal slurry spreading and survive to cross into vegetable crops grown there as appears to be the case in this salad outbreak. Sandwiches traced had e- coli lettuce and have been withdrawn from sale. It is not in our drinking water.
ReplyDeleteThere must be dozens of ways it can get into us - kissing sheep, for instance.
DeleteBlack Mountain Barb shared this quote..it applies to Biden-Trump matters..but I thought you'd find it interesting
ReplyDelete"How many of us remember the Nixon/Kennedy debate? Appearances on TV matter. The words said, say in radio broadcasts are entirely different in presentation.
"This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them....
"There are ways to combat the Gish gallop—by calling it out for what it is, among other ways—but Biden retreated to trying to give the three pieces of evidence that established his own credentials on the point at hand. His command of those points was notable, but the difference between how he sounded at the debate and how he sounded on stage at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, just an hour afterward suggested that the technique worked on him... "
"Of far more lasting importance than this one night is the clear evidence that stage performance has trumped substance in political coverage in our era. Nine years after Trump launched his first campaign, the media continues to let him call the shots. "
Letters from an American
God, I miss Obama.
DeleteDefinitely
DeleteRemember seeing the Nixon/Kennedy broadcast? With Nixon sweating..and the five o'clock shadow...
ReplyDeleteNo, I have forgotten that.
DeleteI'm sorry this has laid you low. It pops up all the time and the CDC has one multi-state infection under investigation. It involves organic walnuts, so it travels on far more than lettuce leaves. That sign in bathrooms that says Employees Must Wash Hands before Returning to Work is not a joke.
ReplyDeleteCovid put us all on alert re hygiene, but we have relaxed a lot since then.
DeleteYes the good old Ecoli loves a pre packed salad. I think sprouts were the latest scare here.
ReplyDeleteThis particular outbreak seems to be waning. A lot of pre-packed stuff has been recalled.
DeleteHope you are soon back to your usual self. How does one catch anything? I got Covid three weeks ago ) a month or so after my covid jab!) No-one other than carers had been for five days - one carer went down with it the same day as me. I have now tested negative on the last three days but still can't face food. Chin up old dear.
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult to blame anything for infections, but in your case I would say that it is most probably the carers taking it from one place to another. I think Covid takes a long time to get out of your system - or the effects of it do. There are still people who are unable to function properly years after the first wave. I'm sorry to hear you are still off your food, Weave. I am slowly improving. They say that e.coli symptoms take 7 - 10 days to go away.
DeleteThey have stopped carers from being routinely tested now. Maybe they should bring it back.
DeleteSorry to hear that you've been poorly ...... I never buy pre packed salad ...... it always seems limp { ooer missus } and doesn't last very long. not to mention Ecoli !!! I have no idea who to vote for ..... Starmer isn't making a very good account of himself but will get in and make a mess of things just like the Tories did !!!!! Hope you are feeling better now. XXXX
ReplyDeleteThank you Jack@
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